The Top Seven Wonders

...at least as drawn from the nominees on Bernhard Weber's list.

1. Eiffel Tower, Paris, France
A bit of a dark horse, the Eiffel Tower is nowhere near as massive nor ornate as many of the other wonders on this list. It was, however, the tallest structure in the world when constructed. What puts the Le Tour Eiffel on my list, however, is how fragile it feels when you climb up it. The tower is constructed from exposed steel girders, which were designed to be temporary. When you look down, you see a lot of empty space boxed in by a little bit of grillework. It's one of those structures that cause you to be amazed that it's still standing.

2. Petra, Jordan
You access Petra by walking down a steep, narrow gorge. You can see the remnants of statues on the sides, but you wonder to yourself what's so impressive about this place anyway. All of a sudden, you reach the Siq -- the mouth of the gorge -- at which point the rock walls open up and you see a gigantic treasury carved into the brilliantly colored rose-red rock (you might recognize it as the resting place of the Holy Grail from the third Indiana Jones movie). Other temples abound in the rock further down the valley. You wonder to yourself who came up with the absurd idea of carving buildings into the sides of cliffs. Absurd or not, the results are masterful.

3. The Colosseum, Rome, Italy
It is one of the best preserved Roman ruins, along with one of the most iconic. Climbing around in the stadium, you can picture yourself watching the gladiatorial contests of two millennia ago, where the likes of Spartacus and Maximus did battle against other warriors and wild beasts. What amazes me most about the 50,000-seat Colosseum is that if you would restore it to its original condition, it would rival many present-day college football stadia.

4. Machu Picchu, Peru
Machu Picchu is largely in ruins today. While the foundations remain, our imaginations are forced to picture for themselves what the ancient Inca city looked like in three dimensions. What puts Machu Picchu on this list (beyond the intricate stonework, by which you cannot fit a knife in between many of the rocks) is the way the Incas tamed nature. At almost 8,000 feet, where the air is quite thin and the soil sucks, the Incas turned the mountainsides into layered terraces, creating narrow, concentric strips of farmplots where there were once sloped surfaces of rock, kept moist by ingenious systems of aqueducts. By the way, the did it all without the wheel.

5. Angkor Wat, Cambodia
Angkor Wat is a 200-plus acre temple complex in the middle of the Cambodian jungle. (By contrast, the entire Vatican City is half that size.) The centerpiece is the iconic temple, complete with its three tall, narrow domed towers, surrounded by a collection of smaller towers, fenced in by a long, imposing colonnade. Upon closer inspection, you see that the domes are encircled by half a dozen layers of individually carved figures. To reach the top level, you must surmount a set of shallow and yet near-vertical stairs.

6. Taj Mahal, Agra, India
Shah Jahan's mausoleum for his favorite wife is a shoe-in for my list. From a distance, the Taj Mahal looks like a monumental structure constructed out of sheer, gleaming white marble. When you approach, however, you take note that the walls are actually covered with intricately carved Islamic motifs. Free-standing amidst lush gardens, reflecting pools, and brick-paved courtyards, the Taj is truly heaven on earth.

7. The Great Wall of China
Placing the Great Wall on this list was a slam dunk. It's four thousand freaking miles long, people. And we're not talking about a little white picket fence here. The Great Wall is 16 feet wide, and that's all solid rock. Oh, and have you seen the jagged mountain terrain it had to traverse? While the other wonders on this list are tremendous accomplishments of human engineering, the Great Wall is the only one that's truly mind-blowing in its proportions.

Tomorrow, we throw out Weber's crappy list of nominees and I pick my ultimate top seven wonders without forcing myself to play by his rules.